Cortex-M55 for ST at last
05
Jan
2025
We had two darlings to close 2024 with ST showing the much anticipated STM32N6, a souped up Cortex-M55 with bells and whistles around AI and video while TI is pushing down the price boundaries, with a 82-cents part embedding 512 kB of Flash. We expect to see more Cortex-M55 and M85 in 2025 with of course a sprinkle of AI accelerators.
After much wait, the STM32N6 is finally there. Based on the Cortex®-M55 running at 800 MHz, it is the first CPU to introduce Arm Helium vector processing technology, bringing DSP processing capability to a standard CPU.
The STM32N6 is the first STM32 MCU to embed the ST Neural-ART accelerator™, an in-house developed neural processing unit (NPU) engineered for power-efficient edge AI applications. Clocked at 1 GHz and providing up to 600 GOPS, it enables real-time neural network inference for computer vision and audio applications.
A dedicated computer vision pipeline with a MIPI CSI-2 interface and image signal processing (ISP) ensures compatibility with a wide range of cameras. The STM32N6 also features an H264 hardware encoder and the NeoChrom™ Accelerator for graphics, making it suitable for feature-rich products.
It offers 4.2 Mbytes of contiguous embedded RAM, ideal for neural networks or graphics applications, complemented by high-speed external memory interfaces (hexa-SPI, OCTOSPI, FMC).
The STM32N6 offers advanced security features, meeting the latest standards with target SESIP level 3 and PSA level 3 certifications.
Available in six different packages ranging from 169 to 264 pins and from 0.4 mm to 0.8 mm pitch, it supports up to 125°C ambient temperature, making it suitable for harsh environments.
Prices range from $8.64 to $10.73/10k.
TI released 11 parts, with 8 from the MSPM0 series. Interestingly, TI is moving up the Flash size dimension with the new samples having as much as 512kB. This is quite a bit for a sub-dollar/1k part and will certainly hurt ST whose lowest cost 512kB Flash part is at $1.69/10k (STM32G0B0KET6).
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